Agri food (potatoes, carrots, onions)

Dynamic times for the agri food sector

Food needs are increasing due to a growing world population (9 billion by 2050) and rising prosperity. This has an environmental impact. At the same time, consumers are becoming increasingly demanding; they want safe, fresh products, but with the best possible shelf life and, if possible, fully traceable.

Topics such as efficiency and traceability are becoming more important for you as a producer. The same applies for the labour shortage problem. And the need to improve ergnomics. Often there is still much to be gained in your onion, carrot or potato packing line! Our sustainable End-of-Line automation solutions will help you.

#1: Potato trader (NL)

One of our customers started to trade table potatoes almost 100 years ago.

To optimise their production process and to reduce the labour costs, this customer has bought an automated end-of-line system to handle 2KG potato bags.

• Old situation
  The customer was running this potato packaging line with 3 people, at a speed of 35 bag/min.

• New situation
  The customer is running this potato packaging line with only 1 operator, at a speed of 80 bag/min.

• How it works?
  A forklift driver brings a pallet with empty crates in the machine and collects a filled pallet with filled crates on the other side of the system. This is done by a de-palletiser, de-stacker, pick and place robotcel, stacker and palletiser.

• Payback period
  < 2,5 years

#2 Potato and onion trader (DE)

A leading German potato packer with five potato packing plants throughout Germany turned to Lan.

Our customer sorts, washes stores and packs 380.000 tonnes potatoes and onions annually. The company employs >350 people. To optimise their production process and to reduce the labour costs, this customer has bought many automation systems. In this case: dolly loading, case packing and palletising.

• Old situation
  Manual packing

• New situation
  A new building was built with automation and volume increase in mind. A deliberate choice was made by the customer to use robots for maximum flexibility towards the future.

• How it works?
  Potatoes arrive in bulk and are sorted, washed and packed in bags. Our equipment packs the bags into supermarket crates or dollies. The crates are palletized and strapped ready for shipment.

• Payback period
  <2 years